Duffle bags have long been known in the art for carrying personal belongings. Generally, duffle bags have been made of a soft, flexible material such as canvas or duck having a slit opening in the top of the bag for packing and unpacking personal belongings. In recent years, duffle bags have been modified to include end compartments such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,830,154 and Des. 235,384 and to be collapsible and self-erecting such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,895,230. Duffle bags are carried by handle straps extending from the sides of the bag or a handle at one end of the bag or by a shoulder strap. However, carrying a duffle bag for any length of time by such means is tiresome due to the weight and the sometimes cumbersome nature of the bag. In the past, duffle bags have not included wheels for rolling the duffle bag. This is presumably due to a number of factors including the flexible unstructured nature of the duffle bag, the difficulty in the manufacture of a duffle bag with wheels, and the prohibitive cost of such manufacture.
While duffle bags have not included wheels, it is known to use wheels on luggage comprised of two rigid shell sections such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,163,268; 3,948,365; 4,026,570; 4,335,896; 4,524,482; 4,773,123; and Des. 285,145. Additionally, hand-carried bags have included various types of wheel assemblies such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 587,794; 4,126,213; 4,596,397; and 4,756,394. However, the aforementioned luggage and hand bags have different characteristics than a duffle bag and the teaching of such wheel assemblies is not particularly applicable to duffle bags.
Further, the above-described duffle bags have additional drawbacks. For example, they are difficult to pack and unpack due to the narrow slit openings providing access to the main storage compartment or to the end compartments. It is desirable that the duffle bag include large openings for easier packing, particularly in the end compartments where bulky items such as shoes and the like may be packed.
The present invention overcomes the above-mentioned drawbacks by providing wheel assembly means for rolling the duffle bag and by providing large openings into the end compartments and the main storage compartment of the duffle bag as more fully described hereafter.